The MAGA Civil War Is Just Getting Started |
The MAGA Civil War Is Just Getting Started
Trump is fighting a growing list of right-wing pundits and influencers who are critical of the Iran war—and who are playing a long game.
Who’s the biggest nut job in MAGA? That question pretty much sums up the civil war that has broken out between Donald Trump and a growing number of right-wing influencers, media personalities, and other former loyalists who have criticized the president over his war on Iran—and sometimes questioned his mental state to boot.
On Thursday, the president hit back at these critics, specifically Marjorie Taylor Greene, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and Alex Jones. “They have one thing in common, Low IQs,” he wrote in an unusually long missive on Truth Social. “They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!” It contained a litany of other criticisms of them. They’re “NUT JOBS, TROUBLEMAKERS, and will say anything necessary for some ‘free’ and cheap publicity.” The post was shrugged off by its targets. “It may be time to put Grandpa up in a home,” Owens replied.
It’s not 2016 anymore. It’s not even 2024. Trump is weak, and opportunists on the right are betting against his administration. That hardly seems like a dicey position, given the Iran war, high gas prices, persistent inflation, and the increasingly widespread belief that the president has lost touch with reality. They’re risking Trump’s ire now because they think it’s a better long-term bet, one that will position them to take the reins of MAGA in the near future.
Greene, Carlson, Owens, and Jones are all stars on the right. Greene was one of the first truly post-Trump Republican politicians; elected to Congress in 2020, she was loudly and proudly MAGA—and prone to pushing zany, often antisemitic conspiracy theories, like one that claimed “Jewish space lasers” were responsible for wildfires in California. Carlson, a longtime conservative commentator, is one of media’s great opportunists; over 20 years, he has evolved from a dorky, bow-tie-wearing supply-sider on cable news to a raucous populist podcaster........